Nicholas Craig column
Feb 18 2005 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal
What a weekend. The glorious riverside location of Labour's spring conference gave Gateshead and Newcastle fantastic national and international press.
The Telegraph renamed the spectacular Sage a `cultural centre', and media drooled in print and person at the impressive bridges, landmark buildings and waterfront setting.
The Labour Party used the conference as a launchpad for the looming General Election.
For the North-East it was also a superbly timed opportunity to promote the area - or more to the point, allow others, such as the Prime Minister, to do it for us.
Tony Blair's paeans of praise were overshadowed by John Prescott, who waxed lyrical about "beautiful days, beautiful weather on the beautiful Tyne with this beautiful Sage centre, the inspiring Baltic new museum and the Millennium Bridge, converting the old decaying riverfront into the Tyne's string of pearls."
Keeping everyone safe caused ripples of discontent. Not since President George Bush visited Sedgefield in 2003 had I seen anything like the numbers of police concentrated in one area.
It was the largest security operation mounted in Gateshead and Newcastle for many years, and although car drivers like myself fumed as we waited in slow-moving queues, the scale of the operation underpinned the security of at least 1,500 people.
The protesters were left out in the cold - a lone Fathers for Justice figure and hunt supporters, all cut off from the action by effective policing.
As the conference ended, a new tourism initiative was launched by One NorthEast designed to bring two million more people to the region every year.
The new drive for tourism seeks to increase the numbers of tourists who stay in rural, coastal and city locations. It is pushing our countryside and coast, history and heritage and city and culture as three separate tourism areas.
These are each blindingly obvious assets to all of us who live and work here, but to bring in an additional 1.3 million visitors from this country and 700,000 from overseas, each needs to be distinctively packaged.
The nine-month consultation exercise leading to this new marketing campaign has decided to brand it `North-East England'.
As one visitor said last weekend, "This is the place to be".
Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton LLP
